Two more

On Bondi (bon-dai, not bondie) Beach

Somewhere around Byron Bay

How to sign Ahwstralian

Back from OZ. Since I am still loopy from the 14 hour flight and lack of sleep, I'll post pic later. As a teaser, some of the unbelievable, laugh out loud, bang your head against the bulkhead, signs that govern 'stralian life.

Apparently, Paris' fashion line has made it to Melbourne.

Hotel California Station on the Sydney subway

Rule 17 of technical writing: If no one understands the terms, don't use them. 

Ejecting warp core in 3..2..1

Clear and concise

I have on good authority that 90% of the Cassowary victims die of embarrassment after having gotten beat up by a 5 foot turkey.

Shoutout

Go see the Bourne Ultimatum--best action thriller ever. It totally stands head and shoulders above the first two iterations. And, since I hate Matt Damon's guts, I am not saying this lightly. There were one or two small goofs, but it's a hell of a ride. They even clean up most of the red herrings they threw out in the earlier two movies.

Boozed and confused

Wew...we went to Hangar One, an artisan distillery on the old Alameda NAS--yes, the one from Mythbusters. Cool building, great fruit and herb vodkas, but the $10 17 variety tasting flight kicked all three of us on our asses. Imagine 4 shots in the middle of the day.

Best vodka ever: Chipotle
Best liqueur: Smoked Tea and Orange
Best aqua vita: Thai Basi (I even bought a bottle for my parents' christmas present)

Florence y'all

OK, Lake Florence, but it's almost as far off the map as Florence, SC. And about 8000 feet higher.

It's at the end of a 35 mile one lane, curvy road. And in this case, one lane means there is a 1000 foot drop on the one side.

Anyway, the landscape up there is absolutely amazing, you can see from the Kern Range and Sierra Crest almost all the way to Mt. Whitney.

Unfortunately, I couldn't take any pictures of the black bear that tried to get into the food locker Sunday night.

More pictures of Lake Florence and Kings Canyon are over here. 

By the way, if you ever want to stand in a place with a 800 foot drop on either side, I can totally recommend Moro Rock in Sequoia NP 

Great Reality TV

My favorite Victoria quotes:

As soon as I walked in, I didn't know if I should laugh, cry, pass out, or get on the next plane home.

At this point I knew there was only one thing to do. Get more drunk.

I find shopping quite therapeutic. As ridiculous as that sounds.

I've never seen anything like it. Maybe this is normal American behavior.

Shoes can make you feel so good.

In England we have no idea what an earthquake is.

Duck, scream and hold? Can you seen my knickers?

Duck hold on shelter whatever. You just think BLEEEP.

Aren't houses normally build from the ground up? (Actually, she totally deflated the real estate guy)

Ugh, it's exhausting being fabulous.

I love that Spiderman lives down the road.

So I'm gonna go to a sex shop, buy an inflatable doll, dress her up like me...she looks quite startled.

I don't know much about baseball. They wear tight trousers...and one of the guys wears a mask like we saw in the sex shop.

It looks like someone with no taste just came in and thrown up everywhere.

Eddie Murphy, Beverly Hills D**k.

I'm not keen on the glove, I think someone might have sweated into it. (at a little league game)

But now I'm getting my trainers dirty. (In Dodgers Stadium)

I think everyone it just thinking "You Stupid Tart"!

I did feel that one of my silicones was gonna fly out my armpit then.

----------------

On the bright side, she totally got back at the CA DMV for me.

AP's Stonehenge Moment

(07-15) 19:40 PDT TOKYO, Japan (AP) --
A strong earthquake jolted northwestern Japan on Monday morning and caused buildings in the capital Tokyo to sway. The Meteorological Agency said small tsunamis as high as 20 inches were believed to have hit coasts in the area.

Best food ever

So after schlepping through the Chron endorsed "up and coming" Western Addition (they have a long way to go to reach ground level along Divisadero and the Chron editor should be fired), I made my way back to the Boulagerie at Cali and Fillmore to get enough Croissant pudding to get me through the week.

It's basically bread pudding made from leftover croissants and tons of eggs, butter, and cream. Very dense, about eleventy billion calories per slice, but OH SO GOOD. I behaved myself and only ate one before even reaching the corner. If any bakery has it where you live; run, don't walk and get some.

Death and mortality

Well, the first thought of the day was "I am dying". Partly a bit of a hangover, but mostly that I was peeing a dark red liquid. I didn't panic and call 911, but very calmly--thinking about Dengue Fever, kidney cancer, and other assorted illnesses--went to my computer, googled the Muir Medical Center and called to set up a inevitable doctors' visit. Maybe a MRI. Of course the lines were busy, so I went to the kitchen to clean a bit and make coffee (typical displacement behavior). About halfway through, I put back the annatto seeds I used for the chicken marinade yesterday, quickly hung up the phone, thanked various deities that JMMC does not use caller ID on non-emergency calls, and added a huge shot of whiskey to the coffee mug.

オタク

Dorkus Californicus: An Explorers Diary

On Friday, the 29th of June in the year of the lord 2007, a few friends and I went on an expedition to observe the Common West Coast Dork (dorkus califonicus) in it's natural habitat.

17:45 -- The 4 hour managers meeting finally ends. I drop my laptop on my desk, grab my cell phone and jog over to the parking garage, calling my co-explorers on the way over to reconfirm the meeting point

17:54 -- After a short, but harrowing trip down I-680, a 5 lane exit swoop, and two traffic lights, I park at the old Andronico's garage and power walk the one block down to B&N, the well known purveyors of crappy books.


17:55 -- The first dorkus come within sight.

17:56 -- We meet up and set up our main blind outside California Pizza Kitchen across the street from the dorkus' feeding grounds. Drea has devastating news: Prima is full, so we frantically send out an expedition to secure a table at Va de Vi around the corner.

17:58 -- We settle down, break out the lattes and start observing the about 250 dorks who have lined up so far. Much to my surprise, only about half of the assembled specimens were the expected dorkus geekus, dorkus basementdwellerus, and dorkus hipsterus. In addition to a strong showing of dorka mallrattia and materna soccera, there are many normal looking people.
17:59 -- Closer to the source, dorkus dorkus takes over, though, easily recognizable by his plummage

And by white on blue territorial markers.


17:59:30 -- Intrepid ABC journos are also out in full force. From the look on the reporter's face, she'd very much prefer Falludja right now.

18:00 -- A collective sigh followed by hollering and clapping as THE SOURCE opens.
18:01 -- The first dorkus has captured it's prey and performs a wild dance to the whistling and clapping of the entire line before he is set upon by ABC 7's local interest reporter. (I think that job would make me kill myself). While she gushes into the camera, ABC cable guy 50 feet back is overheard cussing about 'fucking idiots, waste of time, and why can't they release this BEFORE the weekend.
18:10 -- The hunt is now in full swing: every 30-40 seconds, a new dorkus catches its prey, the line keeps hollering and high five-ing every time another dorkus leaves. It slowly gets boring, so we repair to Va to an expedition dinner.
8:10 -- One frisee salad and dungeness crab pot pie later, we walk back past the feeding ground. The line is still evident, but shorter now. Nobody from the first pride still seems to be in line, so at least $120,000 have been regurgitated.
8:11 -- We stumble across one of many dorkus debris piles



8:15 -- On the way back to my car, I spot a rare dorkus moorus with trademark Crocs. No line here.

Ah, Shakespeare

From the Friday morning meeting at Apple Stores...

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Jobs.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is the iPhone Day.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on iPhones Day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
I the Pod, Lisa and Macintosh,
Jaguar and Panther, Tiger and Leopard-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Job's RDF shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in Gatesland now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon iPhone's day."

1 for 2

I was planning to go whale watching and to Pride this weekend. The whale trip got cancelled due to 12 foot waves at the Farallons, so I caught up on laundry and getting a tan at the pool.

Sunday, the 4 hour Pride parade blew through town. Mostly PG, and many couples marched down Market with their parents or children--Nothing like the Folsom Street Fair. Even the SFPD officers walked hand in hand with their domestic partners; and totally-not-gay mayor Newsom shook hands in a storm of wolf whistles.

Naturally, since the route goes right through the tenderloin, the gays totally freaked out the homeless. One guy 50 feet down from where I was kept howling "You fags will all go to hell" less and less coherently for about 2 hours until he finally passed out from the fortified wine.

Pics

ARRRRRRR!!!

Long story, but I got roped into manning Ye Olde Meat Pie Stand at the NoCal Pirate Festival. Load of wenches, drunks, and people with heat stroke and symptoms of overdoing Ye Olde Turkey Legs two stands over.

Guy on left got his ring caught in guy on the right's beard

I have seen this costume before, but I can't remember where

Marilyn Manson has a sister

Ron Jeremy is a pirate

Don't Stop Believing is a pirate song

Bermudas take away from the biker image

Obviously manned by Baristas

Ron White is right! When you hold a woman in a seashell

bra to your ear, you can hear her scream. 

(PS: Check out the chicken bone boots on the guy on the left) 

. 

I've arrived...

...I think...it took me about 10 minutes to find it weird that half the people in the Muni car were wearing monkey suits.

They all were on their way to the Haight Ashbury Street Fair. As usual for SF festivals, it brought together billowing clouds of burnt chicken teriyaki smoke, hammering House and Dance, Hare Krishnas, drag queens, and people clandestinely selling brownies out of backpacks.

So not a bad day, but given the location, I would have expected the Dead and CCR, not half the California MCs. Great brownies, though....

I hate down climbing granite...

It's perfectly safe to walk down 45 degree granite slopes, but is scares the hell out of me. Especially when the next level surface is 2000 feet down.

Oh, I also got a sunburn. And some pictures.

Tuolumne meadows

Yosemite Valley from Sentinel Dome

Hetch Hetchy

Truthiness in Advertising

Awesome site comparing the ad pictures with what the fast food places actually serve. Hey, the Filet O'Seafood Parts And Plankton almost looks like in the flyer.

Back in Japan

I don't even want to think about the fact that I spent 21 hours on planes this week. Another whirlwind trip to the corporate motherland in Osaka. Actually, much preferable to the Tokyo office. KIX is much smaller and neater than Narita, even if it's on an artificial--and rapidly sinking--island. Always fun to see the guys building a new island just to the north so they'll have an airport when KIX slides under.

It was also the first time that Japan wasn't oppressively hot, and it only poured one day. On the other hand, I still don't understand how it can be more humid than the 100% days in Illinois, but they always manage to kick it up another notch. Even in 73 degree weather, I was soaked. Not much came out of the meetings, but I had an extra day that I spent in Kyoto temple-ing and gorging myself on Kyoto cuisine the first night and $1 per plate sushi when I was templed out the second day. Since I was the only foreigner for miles, I'll just assume that raw egg, spam, duck breast, and raw chicken sushi is normal. Fugu tastes just like very weak squid and is actually quite disappointing. My lips went a bit numb, so it was apparently the real stuff. The cook was nice enough to show me the special locked bucket where they have to keep the livers for the health department.

Oh, if you ever fly United--BRING YOUR OWN FOOD. The stuff they served was right behind 1980s Aeroflot for the worst ever.

Thank you CW...

...for making the series finale of Gilmore Girls suck so horribly that I'll never miss the show.

I _AM_ an idiot

Today, I managed the dumbest face plant ever. I took my "good" bike since it's finally summer here and totally forgot that it has disc brakes and front suspension. So I hit the brakes on gravel out in Crissy Field about as much as on the POS bike I used in winter and the next thing I remember is wondering why I was lying flat on my back. No permanent damage, except to my pride.

The Presidio is so beautiful in the spring.

(Almost) summer

Santa Cruz with mental seals, boardwalk and still stored lifeguard towers. I went diving, I froze my ass off in the water, and I now hate kelp. But it was great--and warming up on the beach with all the bikini wearing Slugs was nice, too.

WTF?

I logged into MySpace for the first time in months and it listed Sam Brownback as "Cool New People". I am officially scarred for life now.

Yay for the Carolinas

80 sheep found living in a suburban home euthanized. You can't make up them things Southerners do.

Thanks Leigh Ann for pointing out what kind of town you moved to. We only have meth labs.

At the same time, SC does politics as usual. Money quote "We tried to explain to the folks in Boston early on that it's a little different here"

Livin' on a Prayer

Weird. Some things you don't notice. I just found out that I apparently never bought any Bon Jovi. I just never occurred to me. Fixed that at the used record store. Long live arena rock.

From the WTF section of the book store

The Batman Handbook

With sections on "How to Throw a Batarang," "How to Make a Batsuit," and "How to Bulletproof Your Batmobile," this is the ultimate real-world training manual for any aspiring caped crusader. You'll discover how to:

- Train a Sidekick
- Execute a Backflip
- Survive a Poison Gas Attack
- Throw a Grappling Hook
- plus dozens of other crucial skills ...

Technical writing

I am such a dork. My subwoofer broke after 10 years, so I bought a set of new speakers on sale. Since the manual was so thin, I actually started reading it. It's pretty much the best manual I've seen in--like--ever. Clear, concise, assuming that the user isn't a complete idiot, and written with a very dry sense of humor.

"Never try to find out how loud your system will go- the answer is fractionally less than the volume that breaks it."

"If you are in any doubt as to how dry your ballast material is, a short period on a baking tray in a hot over should ensure that the material is dry. Please allow the sand or ballast to cool first [before putting it in the speaker stand]"

Sometimes you have to love British public schools.

Staying ali-iiiiiii-iiiiiii-ve

I shop at the Under One Roof Castro shop for offbeat presents like naked-men-bottle-openers and druggie-highway-exit quite a lot, but I wonder if it's worse to die--or to to depend on a charity named after the cheesiest 70s movie ever.

Go watch WorkOut

If you get Bravo, or have iTunes, you can't afford to miss this show. In today's episode, the super gay trainer is jealous because the lesbian owner's doing the straight trainer chick who shows clients pictures of her boyfriend's BLEEEP on her cell phone.

Why I love the Mac (most of the time) Part 3

Because some of the software just works so freaking well that you won't believe if you are only using Windows. For example:

MarsEdit, a program that lets me update my blog by simply sending email to it.

Vienna, the world's most awesome RSS reader. It's even freeware.

The new Camino beta which supports the system wide spelling dictionary.

Holly Chr...

Changing of the guard at a famous Spanish church. The soldiers are members of the Spanish Foreign Legion.

Save the bunny

This must be one of the most screwed up web games. I killed the Bunny five times today in meetings.

UGGS

Ah, the life and times of a blonde:

I'm getting rid of our Uggs - I feel so guilty for that craze being started around Baywatch days - I used to wear them with my red swim suit to keep warm - never realizing that they were SKIN! I thought they were shaved kindly? People like to tell me all the time that I started that trend - yikes! Well lets start a new one - do NOT buy Uggs! Buy Stella McCartney or juicy boots - I'm looking for alternatives myself for my boys and the men in my life! I'm designing some right now for my family and will try and have some available on my website soon.

Pam's blog is a-effing-mazing

This show make you hurl--in the best way possible

Wow, if you get the Travel Channel check out Bizarre Foods. Great travel show, the host is a hoot, and it's the only show on TV that makes my eyes water.

Rotten meat, Criadillas (pretty good), Druiam (actually, not as bad as he makes it out to be), and other things you shouldn't put in your mouth. And I am from a place where the local specialties include calf's brain soup and bone marrow dumplings.

Don't break my heart...

...my eeky geeky heart. It seems like GP-B has experimentally proved frame dragging. The even more amazing part is that Stanford has been working on it continuously since 1959. Even the early grad students who worked on it are retired by now. Even analyzing the collected data will take about 4 years.

So 48 years after it started, we are only 2 years away from the final data.

The way to preserve family values and domestic tranquility

From the Spike and Mike festival (mov)

Oh, the irony

I went ahead and installed the ABC live streaming software. Quick install, fast streaming, and looks gorgeous on a 1280 screen. There is only one problem: I haven't watched ABC in years and now I remembered why!

Anyone know a ABC program that doesn't blow chunks?

Heart of Darkness ca. 2007

Just giving props to one of the most amazing travel blogs ever. Makes me want to go and dread it at the same time.

Point Lobos

Live seals this time. It's 80 degrees out here and sunny like heck.

Swords, Dragons, and Decomposing Sea Lions

Chinese New Year in San Francisco...loud, crowded, and actually a bit of a letdown.

The next day, I saw this interesting rock in Pacifica, so I climbed down to take a picture.









What did I learn?

Decomposing sea lion is the worst smell EVAH!!!!!!

Sunday

Why does everyone overroast?

After a long trip through Starbucks, Peets, local coffee shops and gourmet roasters, I finally found a store that sells 5 ppound bags of Lavazza again. The experience left me wondering why every American roaster overroasts their coffee? At Starbucks it's a given, they use their stuff mostly in highly sugared drinks, so they have to give some bite to average beans. Peets is a bit better, but still deliveres dark, glossy beans that kill most of the taste. And the local roasters--from BlueBottle in SF over Hudson Bay Co. in Rockridge, to Quartermaine and Coyote in DC (and at any stop in between)--are either not far behind, or way worse.

It doesn't have to do with strength, or caffination, or even local differences: every "gourmet" coffee bean in the States is roasted within an inch of its life.

Lily or Lavazza beans make a cup that sits up and barks, but if you look at the beans, they are positively pale, or even slightly greenish compared with the standard US stuff. Might it be that they use pretty much pure Arabica? Or is it just as simple as "Starbucks set the taste of American coffee drinkers and anyone must follow or perish"?

Hey, maybe it's not even Starbuck's fault. NYC diner coffee 25 years ago was thin, black, and bitter.

Insomnia rocks

It's 8:30

-I cleaned the kitchen to Metallica
-I did two loads of laundry
-I rearranged furniture
-I vaccumed to AC/DC

And I annoyed the crap out of the folks downstairs.

Pundits

Theismann--WRONG
Salisbury--WRONG
Hoge--WRONG
Jaworski--WRONG
Schlereth--WRONG
Allen--WRONG
Mortensen--WRONG
Golic--WRONG

Embarrassing Sport Pundit Nitwits

Fog free weekend

Something like 30 degrees in the morning and westerly winds for the last week or so. The perfect mix of no fog, no tourists, and awesome waves.

Any given Saturday

Now that three friends and colleagues in as many weeks have accused me of "hating" Notre Dame, I'd like to clarify:

I don't hate Notre Dame, they are one of the 50 best NCAA football teams. I don't hate any players, I just have issues with their fans, their organization, their loudmouthed alumni, and the guys who've only watched them on NBC. Notre Dame is NOT the best team in college football and they are not even a top ten team. Arguably, they are a top 25, but they are always ranked about 10 places higher than they should be because they have two very unique advantages any given Saturday:

-They don't play in a conference. Any given Saturday, players give just the little extra effort when playing conference rivals. Alabama plays just this much harder when they play Florida, Oregon plays just that much harder when playing USC, and even the pathetic Illini get off their asses when playing Ohio State. OK, Michigan and USC bring out their A game when playing the Irish, but a lot of the middling Division A teams don't have a special stake in the Irish games.
-They play the service academies every year, essentially getting three free wins. Now, Vanderbilt, Indiana, and Stanford provide the same service for the SEC, Big Ten, and PAC 10, but that's one game per year; and even they could probably beat Army, Navy and Air Force any given Saturday. So STFU about "strenght of schedule" while at the same time cashing in on three freebies per year because of tradition.

0-9 in bowl games is all you need to know about how ND fares against top ten teams.

I'll start rooting for them once they decide if they want to be on a level playing field and play Division 1-A, or be the Harlem Globertrotters of the NCAA.

Happy New Year

I had a few days off, so I did a 3 day drive along the parts of Highway 1 I hadn't been to. Back for bar crawl and the fireworks on the Embarcadero (no pics, sorry).

Hangover only lasted until early afternoon--there is something to be said for sticking to mojitos and bubbly.